Vortex (25 page)

In any case, our scholars had estimated that at their current rate of progress the Hypothetical machines wouldn’t reach Vox for months or even years. In fact certain pious elderly citizens were petitioning to be flown to the machines so they could be Uptaken before they died.

They needn’t have worried. Only hours after the Festival of Ido, our unmanned aircraft delivered unsettling news from the Wilkes Basin. The Hypothetical machines had begun to move more quickly than before. In fact they were accelerating—doubling their speed every few hours. That didn’t amount to much at the moment, but if the acceleration continued they would arrive sooner than expected.
Much
sooner, the scholars said: a matter of weeks. Possibly days.

Vox rang like a bell with the news.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SANDRA AND BOSE

“We’re not safe yet,” Bose said when they pulled into a parking space outside Ariel Mather’s motel room.

Sandra had no trouble believing him. She had seen how vigilantly he watched his mirrors as he drove away from State. The plan, he said, was to check Ariel Mather out of her room and put her and Orrin in a different motel for the night. In the morning, Bose’s “friends” would drive them to a safe place out of town.

Sandra stayed in the car with Orrin while Bose knocked at the door of Ariel’s room. Moments later he was back, followed by Ariel with her single scuffed plastic suitcase. Ariel wore denim jeans frayed at the cuffs and a black T-shirt with
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
printed on it. Sandra doubted Ariel had been any closer to the University of North Carolina than the thrift shop where she bought her clothes.

“There are people out there who might still think of Orrin as a threat,” Bose explained to her as she crouched into the backseat. “So we’re taking you to another motel, just overnight. Tomorrow you can get out of Houston and away from all this. That all right with you, Ms. Mather?”

“Yeah,” Ariel said abstractedly. “I don’t have any better idea. What’s the matter with Orrin? Orrin, you all right? Wake up!”

“He was sedated,” Sandra said. “He’ll be fine in a few hours. In the meantime it might be better just to let him sleep it off, if that’s what he wants to do.”

“They
drugged
him?”

“Just a sleeping pill.”

“Huh! Honestly, I don’t know how you can stand to work in a place that drugs up innocent people for no reason.”

“I guess I can’t stand it,” Sandra said. “I don’t work there anymore.”

*   *   *

Bose drove side streets until he was sure they weren’t being followed, then stopped at an anonymous two-story motel near the airport. By this time Orrin was functional enough to climb out of the car and stagger to his room on the arm of his sister. Sandra waited in the motel’s small lobby while Bose carried Ariel’s suitcase.

Getting late now, and she’d had almost no sleep herself, but she was alert and slightly buzzed, still processing the adrenaline she had generated back at State Care. Ariel’s rough tenderness toward Orrin made her think of her own brother, passing the night in an institution far kinder than State and vastly more expensive. She thought about the man on the phone who had tried to bribe her by offering the longevity drug.

To which Bose’s anonymous friends also had access—the original Martian drug, not the hacked commercial version. Would such people also be willing to help Kyle? If so, what would they ask in return?

“It isn’t some kind of elaborate secret society,” Bose had said—was it really only yesterday? “The original group consisted of people Jason Lawton happened to know.” Jason Lawton, the scientist, to whom Wun Ngo Wen had entrusted his inventory of pharmaceuticals. “Not people who
took
the treatment, necessarily, though some did, but people who were willing to make themselves custodians of it. To distribute it ethically and, until the laws are changed, secretly. The circle expanded over the years. It’s not foolproof and it’s not airtight, but we try to take care of each other.”

We,
she had noticed.

Bose came back to the lobby alone. He said, “It’s not a good idea for you to be home by yourself. I figured I’d take a room here for the night.” He smiled. “I’ll make it a double, if you want to save money.”

“So that’s what, an
economic
proposition?”

“No,” he said, “not quite.”

*   *   *

The air-conditioning was anemic, but some things were worth sweating for.

After they made love, lying in the dim and intermittent light cast by passing headlights on the blinds of their room, Sandra ran her finger along the line of Bose’s scar, belly to shoulder. When he realized what she was doing he flinched, but then—maybe by sheer force of will—relaxed. She said, “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

He was silent long enough that she guessed he
did
mind. Then he sat up, bracing himself against the backboard of the bed.

“I was seventeen,” he said. “I was in Madras visiting my father. This was after my parents split up. My father was an engineering consultant for a company that installed shallow-water wind generators. The company rented him a bungalow with a sea view but it was in a dicey neighborhood, the security was bad. Thieves broke in one night. They killed my father. Me, I was stupid enough to try to defend him.” He covered her hand with his. “They were carrying knives.”

If the scar was a knife wound they must nearly have gutted him. “That’s terrible … I’m so sorry.”

“A neighbor heard the scuffle and called the police. I lost a lot of blood—it was kind of touch and go for a while. My mom flew over and took charge, pulled some strings, made sure I got the right kind of medical care.”

Sandra wondered if that was why he ended up at HPD: outrage at the crime, a sense of the police as belated saviors. Southern India after the Spin: “I heard it was pretty bad over there for a few years.”

“Not much worse than Houston,” Bose said. But he was uncomfortable talking about it, and she dropped the subject and let herself drift toward sleep.

*   *   *

It was strange to wake up next to him in an unfamiliar bed, the morning already gone, diesel-scented air seeping in through the poorly sealed motel windows. She sat up and yawned. Bose was still asleep, lying on his back and breathing in a rhythm as regular as waves breaking on a beach. The salty, delicate odor of their lovemaking still clung to the sheets.

She would have liked to lie here indefinitely—and she guessed she could; she was functionally if not officially unemployed; she had nowhere to go—but some Calvinist impulse caused her to pick up her watch from the bedside table. Noon, a little past. The day half wasted. Shocking.

She left the bed without disturbing Bose and used the shower. Her only clothes were the jeans and shirt she’d worn yesterday, and they weren’t especially fresh, but they would have to do.

When she came out of the bathroom he was awake and grinning at her. “Breakfast,” he said.

“It’s a little late for breakfast.”

“Lunch, then. I called Ariel’s room. Orrin’s still groggy but he’s feeling better. They’re going to the motel coffee shop. Maybe you and I can sneak away for something a little nicer? Then come back here. We’re booked for another night, but I can arrange a ride for Orrin and Ariel before dark.”

Yes, Sandra thought. And then? Once the Mather sibs were safely out of town … what then?

*   *   *

The heat wave still hadn’t broken, but the news was predicting storms tonight. Sandra hoped that was true. The sky was dusty and hot, and on the southern horizon the clouds were beginning to build their afternoon cathedrals into higher, cooler air.

Bose’s idea of “somewhere a little nicer” to eat lunch turned out to be a chain restaurant off the highway. Sandra ordered a sandwich and ignored the cowboy-motif decor and the aggressively cheerful waitstaff. By the time they were served the noon crowd had come and gone and the warehouse-sized dining room was comfortably quiet. Bose polished off a huge plate of steak and eggs in what Sandra imagined was a kind of postcoital protein binge. Over coffee she said, “I guess we’ll never know. About Orrin’s notebooks, I mean. Where all that stuff came from and what it means to him.”

“There are a lot of things we’ll never know.”

“He’ll go into hiding and we’ll do … whatever it is we do next. Did you check your phone today?”

“‘Turn in your badge and go home.’ Voice and text. They probably would have sent a candygram if they knew how to reach me.”

“You have any plans?”

“Long- or short-term?”

“Long, I guess.”

“I’ve been thinking about Seattle. It’s chilly and it rains a lot.”

“Just pick up and go? Just like that?”

“I don’t know any other way.” He put down his coffee cup. “Come with me.”

She stared at him. “Christ, Bose! You just open up your mouth and
say
these things…”

“Obviously, I don’t know much about your line of work. But my friends are your friends. Come to Seattle and maybe we can help you find something.”

“That’s just—I can’t—”

“You have any reason to stay in Houston?”

“Of course I do.” But really, did she? No real friends, no prospect of employment. “There’s Kyle, for one.”

“Your brother. Okay, but is it possible he could be transferred to a facility in Washington State?”

“That would involve a lot of paperwork.”

“Oh.
Paperwork
.”

“I mean, I guess it could be done, but…”

He waved a hand apologetically: “I’m sorry—it was a selfish question. It just seems like we’re in the same boat here. No fault of your own. You were doing all right before I walked into your life.”

No, but he didn’t know that. “Well … I appreciate the thought.” She added almost in spite of herself, “I’ll think about it.” Because now she
could
think about it. She was unemployed and falling freely. She could risk everything without risking much at all. “Why is this so easy for you? I’m jealous.”

“Maybe I’ve been thinking about it longer than you have.”

But no, it wasn’t that. It was something more profoundly a part of Bose’s nature, a degree of inner calm that was almost eerie. She said, “You’re not like other people.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You know what it means. You just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well,” he said, fishing his wallet out of his pocket, “we can talk about it after we get Orrin out of town.”

*   *   *

Sandra needed a change of clothes, so she persuaded Bose to swing by her apartment long enough for her to run inside and throw a few things into a suitcase. She packed items from her wardrobe, of course, but she also took her passport, her gig drives, her personal papers. She didn’t know when she would be back. Maybe soon. Maybe never. She took a last look around before she left. The apartment seemed already untenanted, as if it had sensed her intentions and dismissed her.

Downstairs she found Bose waiting patiently, playing some kind of tinny shitkicker music on the car’s audio system. She tossed her bag into the backseat and climbed in beside him. “I didn’t know you liked country music.”

“It’s not country music.”

“It sounds like an alley cat fucking a fiddle.”

“Show some respect. This is classic western swing. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.”

Recorded with a tin can and a string, by the sound of it. “This is what’s keeping you in Texas?”

“No, but it’s just about the only thing that makes me sorry to leave.”

He was tapping the steering wheel in merry rhythm when his phone buzzed. A hands-free app displayed the caller’s number in the lower-left corner of the car’s windshield. “Answer,” Bose said, which prompted the car to cut the music and open the phone connection. “Bose here.”

“It’s me,” a shrill voice said, “it’s Ariel Mather—is that you, Officer Bose?”

“Yeah, Ariel. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Orrin!”

“Is he all right?”

“I don’t
know
if he’s all right—I don’t where he
is
! He went out to the Coke machine and now he’s gone!”

“Okay,” Bose said. “Wait for us right where you are. We’re on our way.”

Sandra saw the change that came over him, the way his lips went taut and his eyes narrowed.
You’re not like other people,
she had said, and it still seemed true, as if Bose had a deep reservoir of calm inside him—but it wasn’t calm now, Sandra thought. Now it was filled with a fierce resolve.

CHAPTER TWENTY

TURK’S STORY

1.

What I saw after the surgery, as I was coming up from anesthesia, not quite awake and not entirely asleep, was a vision of a man on fire—a burning man dancing in a pool of flame, staring at me through ripples of superheated air.